Title: City Council of Darkness
GM: Brennan Lee Mulligan
Players: Emily Axford (she/her) as Vesper Childers (she/her). Zac Oyama (he/him) as Zaeth Bondana (he/him). Siobhan Thompson (she/her) as La Contesse Madelaine (she/her). Lou Wilson (he/him) as LaVonte Worthy (he/him). Ally Beardsley (they/them) as HJ Wingstreet (he/him). Brian Murphy (he/him) as Mitch Frederick(he/him).
Streaming Service: Dropout

If you haven’t checked them out already, you can catch up on our reviews of prior episodes – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine!

Riding high off their successes from last week, our group returns with the weight of a sirely check-in. Koschei, Zaeth’s sire, has announced his impending arrival, and the doting vampire papa isn’t coming alone. While most panic about that, Vesper grapples with her undead status, starting to face that she is a vampire when she believed herself a bat-human hybrid separate from the masquerade of the others. Additionally, LaVonte doesn’t trust Cody, being firmly unconvinced that a werewolf would accept a coterie of vampires moving into the area.

HJ ends up in a river due to a ridiculous attempt to steal from the police station. Ally made all the wrong choices, and Brennan didn’t let them retreat at all, leaving a disaster in their wake. All this for Vesper’s birthday which is the next day. If you want to skip the chaos, go to around 25 minutes in.

More productively, the rest of the coterie, and eventually HJ, who joins them soaking with river water, continue the construction of Elysium, discovering a gumberoo. Vesper quickly reviews her notes, and she discovers that they are extremely vulnerable to fire. LaVonte lures it from the building. Interceding to save the older vampire, Zaeth rides Ghorse into conflict with the fire-breathing cryptid.

Zaeth succeeds enough to stop the gumberoo from attacking him, but it heads toward town, and the soaked HJ jumps in, calling out to it and mentioning Jack of the Pines. Green light flashes. The cryptid becomes aroused and charges. On its back, Mitch tries to guide the monster to the weed shop. A string of errors ends with Mitch turning the creature’s fire breath back against the beast.

Using her psychic powers, Madelaine finds out that the green glow calling to the gumberoo is at the Douglas farm. From the sounds of it, the Douglas family has likely trapped a nature spirit and is using it in their witchcraft. Unfortunately for him, the coterie use the gumberoo to burn down the Douglas’s weed shop and kill the cryptid, denying whatever power they’d get if they captured it.

The police arrive, but LaVonte puts on the charm. He wraps them around his little finger, ensuring that they won’t get caught. Between his efforts and Tyler’s, they’re able to proceed with their plans for the lumber mill.

Koschei is less than impressed by their efforts. He does not believe leprechauns exist. Ermine accompanies him, and they also don’t seem convinced of Big Foot’s existence. The death of the Whittaker patriarch does not impress anyone. Only Madelaine seems to gain some approval.

Ermine ends up speaking with Madelaine separately. She pushes for a data center, demanding that Madelaine act to ensure that the land deal goes through. There are promises if the sale to Beholdr works that Madelaine may be able to escape exile.

While Koschei tries to level with the group and help LaVonte stop from spiraling, he doesn’t believe in the gumberoo either. Pulling Zaeth aside, he tries to get the truth and finds out that they aren’t lying. Koschei expresses his pride. If nothing else, he starts to understand how screwed up Purpee is below the surface.

Meeting up with Cody and Maya after Ermine and Koschei leaves, the group goes down into the bunker. Cody offers to let Vesper and Mitch drink his blood to recover. Vesper has visions, accepting her vampirism. The coterie discovers that there are magical stones in the area where the data center would be built that protect young werewolf children, and Vesper quickly promises to ensure that it isn’t built along with the rest save Madelaine.

When Vesper asks about the Jack of the Pines, Maya panics, teleporting her and Cody away with promises of meeting tomorrow as a root pierces the bunker. If she hadn’t teleported them, Cody would’ve been killed.

Highlights

I don’t care about all the other chaos of the episode. The second Brennan goes into Koschei mode, I’m all in for Papa Wolf. Named after Koschei the Deathless who hid his death in a nesting objects, sometimes a chest in a hare in a duck in an egg, he has that wonderful mix of competent and soft that had me loving Garthy O’Brien.

Then again, it’s crazy that he sees Zaeth being quiet as character growth. Not to say it isn’t. Honestly, it was the best, most productive Zaeth we’ve seen this season, but that’s kind of the issue. The whole mess started with Zaeth, and he’s been causing a whole lot of mess and slowing down progress up until this point. Of course, Papa Wolf will never admit that. He’s all carrot and no stick.

Final Score (3.5 out of 5 Stars)

This season has struggled mostly due to the sheer chaos that happens in the first quarter to a third of each episode. While there have been prior seasons with chaotic beginnings here and there, this seems to be a consistent style choice where bits fill out a substantial section of the first half, leaving the second which actually deals with the plot to feel rushed in comparison.

Knowing how tables can be, I wouldn’t shocked if all prior seasons had the same number of bits and maybe in the same order where the group goes a bit crazy and then focuses before looping around, but the way these episodes were cut and edited does them no favors. The erratic pacing honestly feels a bit like there’s little to no editing at all, especially considering the live shows which do show our Intrepid Heroes lean front-heavy on the bits. If that’s the case, it leads to questions of why they’re editing this season less. Was there not enough material? Were their budget cuts to their editing team? Did they read the success of the live shows as an interest in less edited episodes?

I’d love to find out, and if I ever get the chance to ask, I’ll be sure to share, but as it stands, it just comes across as sloppy.

That being said, the last quarter or so of the episode was great. The interactions between the coterie and Koschei and Ermine were pointed and hilarious, allowing LaVonte to finally spiral, which felt long overdue as he’s been the main one keeping things together as his business partner went off the deep end and everyone else chased their vices to some degree. Madelaine being called out for doing things the old way and getting things done also set up an interesting character arc for her that I’m looking forward to watching unfold.

Let us know what you thought in comments below or go over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.

Featured Image: Dimension 20

The Boss Rush Podcast: The Flagship Podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network

The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord. 

New episodes of The Boss Rush Podcast release every Monday morning on YouTube and all major podcast applications like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Patreon supporters gain one week early access. 

Listen on your favorite podcast application or watch on YouTube!
Anchor | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Twitch | Overcast | Pocket Casts |

Follow The Boss Rush Podcast on Social Media:
Twitter | Discord | Instagram | Twitch | YouTube | Facebook Group | Facebook